Most of last week was spent in the office, but I managed to fit in a quick shoot in Ripon one afternoon, travelling light with my Olympus OM-D E-M10.

I started off at the impressive cathedral with its imposing west front, which was lit by some rather watery sunlight with a heavy grey sky behind – hardly the best lighting for standard stock shots, but I was looking for something a bit different on this occasion so took a few shots with a view to converting to black and white.

Using a pseudo infrared conversion seemed to give the best result, with the yellowy stonework rendering as a really light tone and the sky darkening.

My favourite shots from the cathedral, however, seemed to work best in colour – although a near-monochrome colour.  These were in the cathedral churchyard, where a number of tall crosses could be viewed into the light and silhouetted against the dark clouds, yielding an atmospheric, almost sinister result.

After the cathedral there was just time for a walk along the canal as far as the first two locks, where winter trees and reflections in the still water proved to be the best subject, again silhouetted against the sun peeping through the clouds.